Guide to Identifying Miniatures
How to identify miniatures.
As with anything it all depends on whether you want to put the effort in yourself or you want to put minimal effort in. This guide has three main sections, the first section will cover the basics, the second section will cover the way with least amount of effort on your part. The third section is if you prefer searching for yourself, particularly if you think you have worn out the good will of the community by putting in too many ID requests 😉.
The Basics
Whichever way you decide to do it take a photo or the front, back and base/tab. This will help you when asking others to help identify and for future reference save you having to get the miniature out every time. Obviously I am assuming it is not in packaging but then you wouldn’t be searching unless you want to know more about the history (which should be easy to find).
This is mainly from the viewpoint of identifying fantasy and science fiction miniatures as that is what I know and the Lost Minis Wiki primarily covers those genres.
Base Type and Markings
The majority of miniatures will be from the main manufacturers and most will have base / tab markings. Some are obvious and will narrow down the search significantly.
There is a page on the wiki that pulls together the base marking pages here LMW Base Guide. At the bottom is a guide to shapes and markings although these don’t cover every one. Some manufacturers make it easy and have codes on the bottom of the base which can be cross referenced in the Wiki. The best example of this is Grenadier whose base codes: Grenadier Base Markings.
Base types can also narrow down the search, for example Citadel Miniatures were the first company to introduce the slotta base (around late 1984) and most manufacturers didn’t follow suit until significantly later.
Style
Many manufacturers used the same sculptors throughout their ranges and therefore, with experience, this can give a clue to the manufacturer. Some sculptors have distinctive styles and therefore this will also give a clue to the manufacturer. A good example of this is Bob Olley whose particular style is very distinctive however Bob has sculpted for many manufacturers.
For the most part it is usually straight forward identifying the genre, science fiction, fantasy, etc. and if you know the manufacturer then you can look at their particular ranges in that genre. Historical miniatures are not covered well on the wiki although over the last few years more and more historical miniatures and ranges have been added where there is a crossover (Victorian, Vikings, etc.).
Other
The material the miniature is made may help to date the miniature and different scales will also likely help narrow down the manufacturers. This is probably worthy of another blog post in the future so won’t cover here.
Easy Searches
The following is a quick guide to the options that require the least amount of effort. At this stage you will hopefully have a photo so these should be straightforward:
1. Google Image Search - sometimes this works and sometimes not, even if it does it doesn’t always tell you what the miniature is.
2. Facebook Posts - There are several groups dedicated to miniature collecting and usually other collectors willing to help. Below lists several groups that I would recommend:
a) Lost Minis Wiki - group dedicated to the Wiki.
b) Old School Miniatures - group dedicated to miniatures prior to 1990
c) Oldhammer Miniatures: Valuation Identification and Trading - Warhammer/GW/Citadel miniatures prior to 2000.
There are many more groups that cover more modern eras or particular manufacturers (Dragontooth, Asgard, etc) so if you have a collection of miniatures of a particular manufacturer it may be worth joining one of the dedicated groups. More groups are listed on the Wiki here. These groups usually have dedicated fans, with extensive knowledge, as members.
3. Reddit - If Facebook isn’t your thing then you can join the Reddit group and post images of miniatures there.
If you choose either of the last two then there are a few things that will help you obtain an ID.
(i) Provide photos of the front and back and base where there are markings.
(ii) Note any markings, when you bought it (if you bought it new) and anything else you think it will be useful.
(iii) If posting multiple miniatures set them out in a grid format with row and column labels so people can confirm which miniature they have identified.
(iv) Pace your posts, if you post a hundred miniatures in quick succession then you are likely to annoy the group members and therefore they are less likely to help.
(v) I would also say that putting some effort in to identify the miniatures yourself goes a long way with the communities, they don’t always want to be identifying common easily identifiable miniatures.
(vi) Show appreciation, might be obvious but people are more likely to help if you show appreciation.
Lost Minis Wiki & Other Searches
If you decide that you would like to try and identify miniatures yourself then here’s a guide to help:
Lost Minis Wiki
The Lost Minis Wiki has over 1080 miniature manufacturers with over 100,000 images and so likely will have your miniature. Searching the wiki can be done in several ways depending on what information you already have.
Manufacturers Pages
A trawl of the ranges can sometimes throw up a result if you have an inkling of what range and manufacturer it belongs to.
Search Function
In the top right corner there is a search box, particularly useful if you know the name of the miniature.
External Search Tool
LMW Search Tool - you may notice on the image pages data including taxonomy. This allows a bespoke search tool to search the wiki.
The data allows a search to be done narrowing down by different criteria e.g. barbarian (class) holding sword wearing chainmail with rounded base. Once search is hit it will produce a gallery of images of miniatures matching your criteria. Clicking on the image that matches your miniature will take you to the image page with details.
Currently there is just shy of 28,000 miniatures from various manufacturers catalogued this way. Check out the statistics page to see the coverage. There is quite a lot of effort required to get the miniatures on to the search therefore it is a slow process.
Topical Galleries
At the bottom of the main page there are several links to pages including articles on lead rot, artist and sculptor lists as well as Topical Galleries. The topical galleries can be useful however they are not regularly updated and are difficult to maintain. Search functions above are probably better but sometimes it is worth a flick through the galleries.
Other Sites
Lost Minis Wiki is not the only reference site and there are several others along with useful blogs listed on the wiki page here. A lot of these you will find referenced on the bottom of the manufacturers and range pages on the wiki as many of them have been essential to the development of the wiki. In some cases the people behind them have contributed significantly to the wiki themselves.
Ones of note are:
Stuff of Legends - good coverage of Citadel Miniatures catalogues and great galleries of painted miniatures, check out Orclord Stuff.
Stunties - if dwarves are your thing then Stunties has it covered.
CCM - site dedicated to Citadel Miniatures (not as wide a coverage as LMW but covers the rarer figures well)
DnDLead - dedicated to Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures with many catalogs.
DearTonyBlair - David regularly posts about vintage miniatures.
TMP - The Miniature Pages
Hopefully that covers the main points of trying to identify your miniatures. Feel free to comment with any advice or useful websites for anybody visiting the blog in future.
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